


The Old Man and the Sea

by amclove



Category: Will & Grace
Genre: M/M, a sub plot for this ep was literally just jack and will being bfs and that's bs, another one-shot in which i cry, s8ep3: the old man and the sea, this is far from good but here it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 03:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14967698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amclove/pseuds/amclove
Summary: Shit. Jack had been right, which in itself was an oddity.





	The Old Man and the Sea

     Shit. If Will had to describe his current state of feeling, he would say it could be summed up in a neat package with a pretty little bow to create one word: Shit. Jack had been right, which in itself was an oddity, but there it was. The truth of the matter is that Jack had been right. From the very night of their first meeting, Jack has been around to lend an ear, a lucky comb, a word of solid advice that Will would never follow. Jesus, Will had literally phoned Jack to avoid sleeping with Grace way back when. He has always been there. Even if that comes with a quip toward Will’s ten-pound, imagined weight gain or a snipe aimed at Will’s ever-receding hairline, Jack is and always would be Will’s best friend.

     The problem is that Will already knows that. The problem is that his pushing Jack out and setting up lessons with a new swim instructor wasn’t because Will doesn’t trust Jack to keep him from drowning. Though Will was actually terrified to die in a public pool, it was also due in part to the fact that spending time again alone with Jack reminds Will that the stupid crush he’d let fester over the years can never be anything other than a stupid crush. A stupid, unrequited, messy crush. It’s so deep in there that Will sometimes forgets, even. But then Jack will say something particularly sweet, or smile in just that way—you know, where it seems like he might feel the same, where he looks almost like he’s in love and okay with it; or maybe the one where he just looks so young, because Jack unfairly never ages, and pouts in the slightest to get his way. It could be anything at all, and Will would suddenly run into the brick wall that was his feelings.

     So the problem is that he didn’t mean to hurt Jack, not at all; if anything, he’d wanted to avoid hurting Jack and had thought the best way to go about that would be to… accuse him of not giving a crap about Will’s life. In hindsight, Will has to admit that his intentions, while good, had led him into a ditch. Not for the first time. So he goes to the pool and acts like he always acts, and doesn’t even panic when he says, “It's _you_ , Jack,” and is well aware of the double entendre; or when he says, “You’ve been saving my life since the day I met you. And I don’t know how I missed that,” Will doesn’t qualify that what he means is how he missed Jack being the one for him all this time, that he can’t believe it’s just too late to admit and be done with all that has been treading circles in Will’s brain.

     Jack seems happy, though. So Will supposes that for now he’ll simply have to deal with the rest.


End file.
